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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30336
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30336
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

This is an interesting question. The answer, I believe, lies in remembering that people read for pleasure. And when it comes to our pleasures, we value predictability very highly. This is not to say that surprise has no role in pleasure, but it is a very confined one. When we read a mystery, we want to be surprised when we find out who the killer is, but we read mysteries because we predict that we will have that pleasurable surprise (and only that particular surprise) at exactly the time and place we expect it.

In that sense, a piece of writing is like a cruise ship. The passengers don't need or want to know what is going on in the engine room (OK, I want to know, but I trust you get my point). They don't want to know the details of navigation and ship handling or how things run in the galley. But before they buy their tickets, they do want to know the exact itinerary, the exact cabin they will be occupying, and the kind of meals, amenities, and entertainments that will be provided on the voyage.

The pleasure, in other words, in in the voyage itself, and in the ports of call, not in any mystery about what they will be; it is in the food and the wine, not in any surprise about how and when you get to eat.

A genre is a promise of a certain kind of literary pleasure. Most readers stick to their chosen genres because they are looking for the specific pleasures that those genres promise. That is why it is harder to sell a story that does not fit an established genre: such a story asks the readers to take a risk on a book that may not deliver the specific pleasures they are looking for.

So, the part you want to conceal is how the sausage is made, not the fact that your are serving sausage. The pleasure lies not in surprise but in superb execution of the experience the reader signed up for. So the reader is always going to ask, what am I signing up for here? If you don't tell them, they are not going to read on. So it is essential to make it very clear where this is going, and then to make the journey unforgettable.

I once heard an agent describe what publishers are looking for as "the same, only different". "The same" is key here. The same is the guarantee of the familiar experience I want and am accustomed to. The different part is a modification of that experience that safely keeps it within the bounds of what I expect while giving a pleasing but safe variation on that experience.

Original score: 33